[On Monday, Jammu and Kashmir State issued an
order that one official said was aimed at closing the gap between the rich and
the poor. Under the new regulations, weddings will be capped at 400 to 500
guests and organizers can serve just 14 dishes — seven vegetarian and seven
nonvegetarian options. Engagement parties would be capped at 100 guests, and
penalties could be imposed on violators.]
By Ayesha Venkataraman and Nida
Najar
 |
|
Garima Pant, a bride,
being escorted to the wedding hall by her relatives and bridal party in New Delhi in
2014.
Jammu and Kashmir State in India has imposed new regulations capping
the number of guests at weddings
and engagement parties. Credit Daniel
Berehulak for The New York Times
|
MUMBAI,
India — A modern Indian
wedding might include a dayslong celebration, ornate invitations, elephants
covered in finery and a bride adorned in gold.
But in an effort to curb such extravagant
spending, lawmakers in one Indian state have imposed new regulations to limit
wedding celebrations to an intimate 400 or 500 guests.
Lavish multimillion-dollar weddings thrown by
the country’s superrich have enraged the country’s poor, who are struggling
with profound changes to the economy, including a cash crisis.
On Monday, Jammu and Kashmir State issued an
order that one official said was aimed at closing the gap between the rich and
the poor. Under the new regulations, weddings will be capped at 400 to 500
guests and organizers can serve just 14 dishes — seven vegetarian and seven
nonvegetarian options. Engagement parties would be capped at 100 guests, and
penalties could be imposed on violators.
“During the last 20 months we have been
receiving complaints from the public that rich people are spending huge amounts
during the marriages,” said Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali, the state minister for the
Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs. “Poor people were
forced to spend the money on the marriage ceremonies of their daughters and
sons.”
Though it would appear difficult to enforce
the order, which will take effect on April 1, Mr. Ali said the government would
issue penalties for noncompliance.
“Marriages can be stopped; the banquet hall
can be seized,” he said. “They can be penalized and they can be imprisoned even
if anybody violates the government order.”
The urge to mark weddings as lavish affairs
is partly cultural, said Sonalde Desai, a sociologist at the University of
Maryland and the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi who
studies changes in Indian families, including marriage practices.
“For the bride’s family, there is the
expectation that if they don’t pay for a really lavish wedding, their daughter
will not be treated well in their marital homes,” she said.
But rising incomes have raised the ante of
what lavish means in India, and the poor often take out loans to pay for
weddings.
Jammu and Kashmir’s action was not the first
official effort to rein in wedding spending. Ranjeet Ranjan, a member of
Parliament from the impoverished Bihar State, has proposed a bill that would
curb wedding expenditures nationally.
She hopes that the bill will be introduced in
Parliament next month. It would set a limit on wedding expenses of 500,000
rupees, or about $7,500, a pittance for even a typical middle-class wedding.
Under Ms. Ranjan’s proposal, families who
spend more than $7,500 would have to contribute one-tenth of the wedding’s
costs to a fund that would go toward paying for the weddings of poor families.
Similar bills have been introduced in
Parliament in the past, but none have passed. When Jammu and Kashmir tried to
restrict the number of wedding guests in 2004, the order was stayed by the
state’s High Court within days of its enactment, according to local news media.
“There is undue pressure from society to have
a lavish wedding, even when you can’t afford it,” Ms. Ranjan said. “I’ve seen
people spend a lifetime’s worth of money in two days.”
Ayesha Venkataraman reported from Mumbai, and
Nida Najar from New Delhi.